You have arbitrarily limited your definition of "badness" to "scope". You don't understand the scale of GCHQ data collection and are trying to minimize it. You are mistaken if you believe there are no Tier 1 internet circuits in Britain. Just because a circuit is owned and operated by a U.S. based company doesn't mean it's physically in the U.S.

Flapping your lips in ignorance does not answer the mail. But, if you want to live in denial and go through mental gymnastics just to protect the collectivist-authoritarian nature of your government, that's up to you. Just don't put too much effort into it, because it's patently obvious to everyone that's what you're doing. You could save some time by just saying "I'm fine with this".

For the "whistleblower" protections to apply to Snowden, the matters he revealed would have to be demonstrated to be illegal acts.

This is incorrect.

But, even if it were correct, a gross violation of the Constitutional rights of citizens is certainly illegal, even if somebody claims they've got a law that arguably authorizes it.

So, do you suggest that the charges brought against Snowden can be affirmatively defended based on whistleblower protections?

I believe a defense can be mounted based on that argument, but I believe this government will do whatever it wants to do to Snowden._________________History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. -- Abba Eban

ok lets be blunt here...
FOR the US PRISM program to fully work it requires GCHQ, it required the data that GCHQ can capture.
Why? because the UK route a fucktonne of data from Middle-east --> USA (but wait the USA PRISM can monitor that), it also route a fucktonne of data from Middle-east&EU to the EU something that the USA would no read. Equally we do seem to ... tolerate militant minded people (better to snoop then to get rid of them I guess)

Amsterdam routes the most data, Germany *CAN* route the next most data (but peaks out), LINX in London routes the next highest. ... further down the list we get USA T1 organisations.

Sure the NSA started their own surveillance on their own, GCHQ on their own (I am still surprised ppl here are shocked... we kinda knew gchq were going todo this back in the 90's once the new bld was built, especially due to a few bit I have picked up).

But at some point uk & us, being all chummy decided to share info (for obvious reason) and bam to compliment each other, their surveillance expanded. TO say one is worse than the other when it is a bilateral intelligence arrangement (forgoing the fact there will be alot we hold back and what the us holds back) is a moot statement ONCE a bilateral electronic intelligence gathering arrangement exists.

guilty by association. US used GCHQ data, UK used PRISM data so lets just drop this petty "urs is worse, no urs"... they complement and if one is guilty the other is for using the data no matter how it was obtained.

downside... the US being in control of the internet is going to come under increased international pressure, EU to alienate the UK more, Oceania is being formed_________________The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter
Great Britain is a republic, with a hereditary president, while the United States is a monarchy with an elective king

Last edited by Naib on Wed Jun 26, 2013 12:20 pm; edited 1 time in total

This thread is a weird pissing contest. One party alleges his country fucked him more, while the other alleges his._________________1958. It's been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it's here. And it's either heads or tails. And you have to say. Call it.

This thread is a weird pissing contest. One party alleges his country fucked him more, while the other alleges his.

What's important is that they focus on something utterly insignificant

That the data was even captured OR the manhunt for someone confirming the programs existence to the us population and as such is being charged with... Espionage? Ie the american ppl are the enemy of the govn?

Ppl prob too scared to discuss due to prism_________________The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter
Great Britain is a republic, with a hereditary president, while the United States is a monarchy with an elective king

You have arbitrarily limited your definition of "badness" to "scope". You don't understand the scale of GCHQ data collection and are trying to minimize it. You are mistaken if you believe there are no Tier 1 internet circuits in Britain. Just because a circuit is owned and operated by a U.S. based company doesn't mean it's physically in the U.S.

Flapping your lips in ignorance does not answer the mail. But, if you want to live in denial and go through mental gymnastics just to protect the collectivist-authoritarian nature of your government, that's up to you. Just don't put too much effort into it, because it's patently obvious to everyone that's what you're doing. You could save some time by just saying "I'm fine with this".

You have arbitrarily limited your definition of "badness" to "scope". You don't understand the scale of GCHQ data collection and are trying to minimize it. You are mistaken if you believe there are no Tier 1 internet circuits in Britain. Just because a circuit is owned and operated by a U.S. based company doesn't mean it's physically in the U.S.

Flapping your lips in ignorance does not answer the mail. But, if you want to live in denial and go through mental gymnastics just to protect the collectivist-authoritarian nature of your government, that's up to you. Just don't put too much effort into it, because it's patently obvious to everyone that's what you're doing. You could save some time by just saying "I'm fine with this".

I suppose the question is how much freedom are we willing to give up to be free?

More like how much freedom are we willing to give up to be "safe" (with safe in quotes for a reason)._________________History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. -- Abba Eban

I think it wouldn't be that hard for someone with access to a large botnet to bring such programs down.
They'd just have to generate enough traffic (even HTTP GET requests to nonexistent addresses could suffice) tainted with the right keywords which would generate so much information noise that the data collected by the program would be meaningless.

The question is, whether they'd be assisting "the real bad guys" by blinding the program. Would it be worth it?

I am still surprised ppl here are shocked... we kinda knew gchq were going todo this back in the 90's once the new bld was built, especially due to a few bit I have picked up).

Who is shocked? The snooping was supposedly wrapped in a "check mechanism." Snowden forced acknowledgement that the check mechanism was nothing more than smoke and mirrors. "Knowing" is one thing, admission is another. Sadly, nothing meaningful will change as a result, and people will reelect Democrats and Republicans, or "hold their breath" and not vote._________________lolgov. 'cause where we're going, you don't have civil liberties.

I can even be more specific by saying, "How much? Not this much". Wiretapping and spying on everybody (and keeping it all indefinitely) with the explanation that you're only going to look at if you have a reasonable suspicion is bullshit. That's almost exactly like telling a girl who doesn't want to be fucked that it's okay because you're only going to put your cock halfway in. Even if you believed it when you said it, it's far to tempting an invitation to abuse, and the kinds of abuse it enables are completely unacceptable in not only character but scale.

It is, very clearly, the exact kind of "unreasonable search" our Constitution guarantees us protection from. The protective constraints, judicial governance, and legislative oversight are all both inadequate and opaque.

As many people have commented in the press, we (and I mean our two countries, with mine leading the way down the rosy path) have created an "infrastructure" of authoritarianism that would be the wet dream of any totalitarian state that's ever existed, and we the ignorant masses are supposed to be comforted by the promise not to abuse it (with this promise coming from an Administration that, as we have been reminded by several recent scandals, is notorious for its bald-faced lies and which has demonstrably abused similar powers)._________________History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. -- Abba Eban

I must assume it is the last question cokehabit asked (how much freedom are we willing to give up to be free), which he apparently thinks was clever (okay, it is a little bit clever, but it's also a false ouroboros). My response was that people aren't giving up freedom to be free; they are giving up freedom to be safe (and in many cases, for the illusion of being safe).

Furthermore, anyone actually believing they were giving up freedom to be free could only logically be doing so if they believed they were making a temporary sacrifice for a long-term benefit. In that case, the uncertainties become at least as salient as the magnitude of freedom being sacrificed (how long you are going to have to give it up for, and how certain you are that this temporary sacrifice is going to achieve the long-term benefit, is as important as how much freedom you are giving up). The indefinite (and thus far continuous) duration of this and the secrecy surrounding it (which creates a high level of uncertainty) are a big part of why this situation is troubling to those who value individual and human rights._________________History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. -- Abba Eban

Let's be clear: this use of the NSA is 10% "national security" and
90% "Blackmail, Inc." (Connecting up phone numbers of hookers,
bookies, crack dealers, and so on with phone numbers of judges,
law enforcement personnel, building inspectors, EPA regulators, finance
industry regulators, people with high enough security clearances
to have access to supposedly classified data, FBI files, and so on
ad infinitum.)

This, I think, was Snowden's point: the domestic surveillance that
we know about and that privacy advocates complain about publically
is only the tip of the iceberg._________________TIA